It Still Matters That The George Floyd Prosecutions Were Corrupted By Racial Politics
We are watching the BLM crowd (this time acting under the Hamas banner) gear up again for violence before an election. It’s important to understand that this is all staged. One way to understand how Democrat politics operate is to look back at the political corruption surrounding George Floyd’s death.
On July 29, 2021, Peter Cahill, the presiding Minnesota State Court judge trying the four police officers indicted for George Floyd’s death, ordered the release of the prosecutors’ report detailing how Dr. Roger Mitchell, the then-medical examiner and Deputy Mayor for D.C., coerced the Hennepin County medical examiner, Dr. Andrew Baker.
The memo detailed Mitchell’s threat to damage Baker’s professional career with a critical op-ed in the Washington Post if Baker did not amend the language of his preliminary autopsy report by adding compression of the neck as a cause of death, something Baker had not believed was the case. Doing so would make the death a homicide. Baker’s ultimate report, which he’d changed in response to Mitchell’s political pressure, converted a death from natural causes into a justification for indicting four police officers for murder.
Floyd was pronounced dead on the evening of March 25, 2020. One day later, Baker conducted a careful autopsy that found no physical evidence that the officers applied excessive force. Instead, Baker suggested that Floyd’s death was from natural causes, not excess force, strangulation, or asphyxiation. Floyd had “severe” heart disease that put him at risk for a cardiac arrest under stress and exertion, something medical examiners see frequently.
Andrew Baker testifying at Derek Chauvin’s trial. YouTube screen grab.
The matter should have been over then. Three days after they received Baker’s initial report, Hennepin County prosecutors issued a complaint against Chauvin reflecting Baker’s findings: “The autopsy revealed no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation.”
However, Floyd’s natural cause of death had no value for Mitchell, who had a political agenda. To understand this agenda, it’s important to note that the D.C. medical examiner assisted prosecutors in the Aurora, Colorado, case of Elijah McClain and the Tucson, Arizona, case of Carlos Ingram-Lopez. Mitchell was unsuccessful as a prosecution witness against three officers in the 2023 Manuel Ellis trial in Tacoma. In every case, Mitchell was there when the political environment was shaped by a racialist anti-cop mob and media.
Mitchell works under the premise that if a person dies resisting arrest, the police are guilty. In a 2022 Meet The Press interview, Mitchell explained his motives for assisting prosecutions against law enforcement when prisoners or arrestees die. According to him, medical excuses are used to cover up the hundreds of murders that American law enforcement commits against arrestees and prisoners. His mission is to expose those miscarriages of justice.
In medical science, this approach is called outcome bias. The uncertainties surrounding sudden death give him room to maneuver. Many sudden death cases are easily explained by an autopsy (e.g., big strokes, ruptured blood vessels, major clots). When those causes have been eliminated, the likeliest cause of sudden death is cardiac arrest, which doesn’t leave much of an evidence trail. The exception is a type of heart disease that puts people at risk for abnormal rhythms that deteriorate to cardiac arrest and death.
To nail Derek Chauvin, as a prelude to bullying Baker into changing his report, Mitchell had to ignore the hard evidence that Baker discovered. Baker’s initial, unsullied impression after completing the autopsy of Mr. Floyd was that Chauvin and his fellow officers were not responsible for George Floyd’s death. This was not a police homicide. Without homicide, the County of Hennepin and the State of Minnesota could not prosecute the officers for murder.
Mitchell saw Baker’s initial report, called Baker, and insisted that the language had to change to make restraint and neck compression the cause of Floyd’s death. After several days of local and national rioting, Baker knew that it was not just his career on the line (a point Mitchell made very clear). Mitchell also bullied Baker into believing that America’s survival depended on him. Under duress, Baker added “neck compression” to the final report and called the death a “homicide.” This change made it possible for the prosecutors to charge Derek Chauvin, the senior police officer on the scene, with murder, a total miscarriage of justice.
As an emergency physician since 1974 and an attorney since 1979, I was appalled by Mitchell’s interference, and I knew when I read the autopsy that Baker was initially correct—death from natural causes, no homicide. What follows are excerpts of Mitchell’s claims as documented in the state’s exhibit and my commentary on the same. The full text of the original autopsy is here. The link to the memorandum containing Mitchell’s opinions is here.
Mitchell: Autopsy pretty complete but noted Baker did not perform a layered posterior neck dissection”
Dunn response: Wrong. The autopsy report shows that Baker did a thorough and careful autopsy. It revealed that no life-threatening injuries were identified after a thorough dissection of tissues from the scalp to the waist, with particular attention to the neck, mouth, throat, and airway.
Mitchell: “The lack of a hemorrhage in the deep tissue doesn’t necessarily add value but the presents of a hemorrhage can be helpful to understand the amount of pressure”
Dunn response: The fact that there is no sign of injury exonerates the officers but, again, Mitchell dismisses the evidence with a hand wave.
Mitchell: “Mitchell agrees with Baker that the neck compression is a component of the mechanism of death.”
Dunn response: Mitchell talks in circles. He can’t make up his mind if the death was respiratory or circulatory. He only wants the magic words—“neck compression.”
Mitchell also ignores the critical information on the brain tissue exam that shows no evidence of lack of oxygen (hypoxia) that would have been present with respiratory or circulatory death. Thus, Baker’s autopsy said: “Sections of hippocampus, cerebellum, cerebral cortex, and midbrain show the expected microscopic architecture, without hypoxic– ischemic, reactive, neoplastic, or inflammatory changes.”
Mitchell: “With respect to the term Asphyxia (sic), there are typical indicators of asphyxia that are not present but also believes the neck compression played a significant part in Floyd’s death. [snip] Baker’s lack of use of the term asphyxia is a style issue.”
Dunn response: Stop the presses! Style issue? No, it isn’t a style issue. It has to do with a proper cause of death analysis and conclusions. Baker found no evidence of asphyxiation or strangulation. The autopsy found no crushing or constricting injury of the neck and no hypoxic brain injury
Mitchell: “Did not die from overdoes (sic)”
Dunn response: Agreed. This was not a Fentanyl overdose that causes lethargy, stupor, and respiratory failure/arrest. However, Mitchell ignored the cardiac stimulating and irritating effect of exertion, heart disease, agitation, and the stimulating but not lethal 19 nanogram level of methamphetamine.
Mitchell: “úHigh blood pressure úDilated heart úHypertension úCardiovascular disease puts Floyd at risk for fatal arrhythmia” [Dunn: Cardiac arrhythmia was a risk because of Mr. Floyd’s bad heart disease]
Dunn response: Mitchell makes the case for heart disease and cardiac arrhythmia, so why is he pushing Baker on neck compression? Simple: He had a political anti-police agenda, and he and the prosecutors needed to have a homicide. Baker rolled over for them.
In June 2021, I made a demonstration video showing the restraint that Chauvin used for ten minutes on Floyd. As with Chauvin and Floyd, the individual applying the restraint weighed 170 pounds, and the individual playing Floyd’s role weighed 230 pounds. The individual being restrained suffered no compromise of breathing or oxygen level and certainly no risk to health.
In January of 2023, I did a similar video demonstration. This time, though, I used myself—a 160-pound, 77-year-old man who broke his neck in 2020—as the person being restrained and had a 220-pound man on top doing the restraining. I continuously monitored my oxygen level and got the same negative findings: no harm and oxygen level normal. In fact, my oxygen level went from 96 to 98% during the restraint period.
“Lying for justice” often occurs in political or ideologically charged matters where the actor is convinced the result is worth the deception. Unfortunately, this is becoming increasingly common among medical professionals, amplifying and promoting the conduct of racialist medical “experts” like Roger Mitchell. This is because medical science and practice have been poisoned by a prism of racialist, critical race theory ideology. Marxist Socialist Racialist Wokeness, which permeates the Democrat party, corrupts society, and medicine is not immune. In fact, organized medicine, from academia to professional organizations, has embraced the corruption.
John Dale Dunn is a 50 year emergency physician, 40 year attorney, 20 plus year corrections physician, medico-legal consultant, academic, writer.
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